


the stars behind my eyelids

by sheelia



Category: Kuroko no Basuke | Kuroko's Basketball
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Fluff, Humor, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-04
Updated: 2015-02-04
Packaged: 2018-03-10 11:21:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,465
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3288482
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sheelia/pseuds/sheelia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The universe is a lonely place. Aomine's always been searching for something in the stars, and after a somewhat unfortunate series of events, he thinks he's finally found it.</p><p>(aka more college au with these losers)</p>
            </blockquote>





	the stars behind my eyelids

**Author's Note:**

> i watched 5 centimeters per second many years ago and it fucked me up. i watched it on the plane and i was shamelessly bawling in public. i haven't been able to sit myself through it again, as much as i want to, because it's so beautifully sad and i hate how it's too realistic T^T thankfully, this fic has nothing to do with the film. no angst!!! yes!!! there's a particular scene in the second act of 5cm per second where the guy is sitting on a hill at night and the illustration is just perfect. i think about that scene a lot.
> 
> this took 1.5 weeks to write and it came out more rambly than it should have been oops sorry. i'm obviously inexperienced at writing sexy times.

In spite of Midorima's quirks, he still has one redeemable quality. He may be stubborn and he may have problems expressing care and concern, but he is definitely a man of his words.

Unless, of course, it has anything to do with the day's horoscope.

"What do you mean you ‘can't leave your room'?" Aomine asks, fingers drumming impatiently on the surface of his crappy laptop.

He hears Midorima turn on his god damn vacuum cleaner. The bastard. Midorima clears his throat, pretending that he wants Aomine to hear him properly. "Oha Asa predicts terrible luck for Cancers today. I'm not leaving my room to drive out to the countryside with you. I don't even have my lucky item with me."

"Listen," Aomine starts, his voice getting louder with increasing desperation.

But Midorima interrupts, "Remember when you almost drove us off a cliff. Or the time you burst a tire and had no spare. That was when I was lucky. God knows what can happen tonight."

Aomine scoffs. These are just worst case scenarios. He _could_ have driven them off a cliff, but fact remains that he didn't. 

The vacuum cleaner noises are getting louder and Aomine suspects that Midorima is putting it next to his phone. "Got to go! Can't hear you!" Midorima shouts, and then the line goes dead.

Aomine nearly slams his head on his keyboard. Maybe the radiating heat can fry his brain and he could be absolved of all his trivial responsibilities. He looks up at his screen and re-reads the email in its entirety, trying to wish it away. The school paper wants to do a write-up on newly established clubs. More specifically, the school paper wants to write about Aomine's "highly enthusiastic" and "deeply motivated" astronomy club. That would be true if his club had more members than the bare minimum, and if he wasn't the only one who liked looking at the night sky. Well, he supposes Midorima is slightly interested, since he did after all accompany him the time they almost drove off a cliff.

He considers turning the offer down. Imagine what the paper would write if they found out that the astronomy club only had one participating member? How embarrassing.

 _I'd like to learn more about the Astronomy Club's activities_ , it read. _Can I join your stargazing activities on Friday night? To gather more material to write about, mostly._

The email was sent from Kise Ryouta, _the_ Kise Ryouta, one of the best writers the school paper has. Everybody reads whatever he has to say. He could be writing about toothpaste and the dumb girls on campus would cut out his article and paste it on their walls. _Well..._ the astronomy club could use some publicity, not that Aomine bothered in the first place. Maybe club activities would be more fun if he wasn't alone seventy percent of the time.

 _Sure_ , he sends back. _Let's meet at 4 p.m. in the carpark._

He clicks on the send button with as much courage as he can muster and hopes that he does not regret it.

 

~~~

 

Aomine has always been entranced with the stars. Young and ambitious, it was completely natural for him to want to look upwards anyway. It started in middle school when he ended basketball practices late. The particular area in Tokyo he lived in had subpar lighting, which would have otherwise been a hassle if not for the better view of the night sky.

 

~~~

 

In the hours leading up to his impending doom, Aomine panics. The astronomy club has a grand total of five members, but three of them are merely members in name. It took a while to convince Kuroko and Kagami, as well as twenty dollars’ worth of mauibo to lure Murasakibara, but it was a small price he was willing to pay to receive school funding. He paces around his room and even tries to clean to get his mind off things. And by clean, Aomine is really just pushing piles of stuff together to create a gigantic pile to free some floor space.

When it is fifteen minutes to four, Aomine gets up from his bed. Swinging his backpack over his shoulders, he mentally recites his elevator pitch as he walks to the open air parking lot. His spot is in the middle of nowhere, but he knows that the walk is worth it. Midorima once wrote a statistics paper on the probability of cars getting crapped on in this particular school parking lot. He let Aomine in on his little discovery in exchange for free rides.

He's loading his backpack in the trunk when he hears someone call out his name. When he turns around, he sees Kise running towards him, golden tuft of hair and sparkles and all. It's very distracting.

Kise throws him a bottle of cold green tea, holding up his own in his other hand.

"Thanks for letting me come along," Kise says. He takes a quick glance around. Aomine still has his trunk open and it contains a grand total of one backpack. "Where are the rest?"

Fantastic. Aomine has already prepared an answer for this question. "All the others coincidentally had other more urgent activities to attend to. So it's just me and you today." He wonders if he should be more enthusiastic in discussions regarding the club, but then quickly dismisses the idea. Enthusiasm has a habit of draining his energy supply.

Kise hums an 'okay' and practically skips to the passenger's seat. Aomine can barely believe this guy. People on campus say that Kise Ryouta is, without doubt, the most optimistic and happy-go-lucky guy ever. _That cannot possibly be true_ , Aomine reasons. It takes some form of self-loathing to willingly bathe yourself in glitter and shit out rainbows.

As Aomine starts his car, he gives Kise a brief run through the usual activity schedule. Aomine says while adjusting his rear view mirror, "I don't bother going too far. Too lazy. There are a bunch of hills just outside Tokyo and we can get a good view there. We can pick up dinner on our way."

Kise is surprisingly quick to agree on what to eat for dinner. It usually takes fifteen minutes and arguing to decide with Midorima. Aomine pulls over outside a fast food joint and Kise hops out to take away two beef bowls. Kise asks if he can eat in the car, to which Aomine replies, "Sure. But I swear to God if you spill that shit in my car—"

"Don't worry, Aomine-kun," Kise immediately interrupts at the opportunity. "I'm very good with my hands."

Aomine catches a wink from the corner of his eye. Is he... _flirting_?

It takes around two and a half hours to reach the outer area of the city. Both of them engage in some small talk. Kise talks about the one time he had to cover for the paper's sports correspondent at the school's basketball game. "That's how I recognized you, by the way. You were doing amazing basketball things while running across the court."

Aomine snorts at how dumb that sounds, "You mean, dribbling?"

"Yeah, yeah. That," Kise says, swinging his chopsticks around. Aomine hopes he's not getting rice all over the place.

He figures he should return the compliment, "Well I never thought that you'd be the one to write about my club, anyway. It would definitely help with publicity."

There is a brief moment where they both turn to each other and smile.

 

~~~

 

The sun is teetering on the edge of the horizon and the sky is a mesh of violet and red. Kise stumbles out of the car and almost kisses the ground in utter relief. The unpaved gravel road has certainly given him a headache. Aomine lets Kise slowly reacquaint himself with land as he eats his already cold dinner. Leaning against the hood of his car, he silently eats his rice. Cold beef is disgusting, but meat is still meat anyway.

As night slowly descends and darkness soon begins to surround them, Aomine quickly finishes his rice and heads to the trunk to retrieve his torch. Kise is busy snapping pictures with his pretentious and expensive camera, making unnecessary clicking noises. Kise comes over to help Aomine carry his things and Aomine admits that having company is honestly better than being alone.

Both of them walk over to a decent-looking patch of grass.

"So like, does your club do stuff like astronomy olympiads? Or Physics?" Kise asks. It's gotten too dark to write anything on his notebook and Kise also seems to have misplaced his pen, so he reaches into his pocket to whip out his mobile phone to take notes.

"Fuck no," Aomine instantly replies. "I just sit here and look at stars. Not interested in letting math ruin everything I love."

Kise's phone lights up like the fucking sun and Aomine has to swat it away before it blinds him. "Put that away. It affects your vision at night."

Kise suppresses a shriek and thankfully catches his phone. He pouts a little and stuffs it back in his pocket. He plops himself on the ground next to Aomine, leaning over to get a better look at the tattered planisphere in his hands. Aomine glances at his watch and adjusts the chart.

Pointing at the edges of the planisphere, Kise asks, "What happened?"

Aomine shrugs nonchalantly, "Got nibbled on by rats when I left it on the ground."

Kise almost screams.

Aomine then lies flat on the ground, holding his star chart up above his eyes. Kise supposes that he should join him, but then he thinks about how expensive his shirt was and what a pain it would be to get dirt all over it. And the next moment his back is against the cool brush of grass, Aomine's palm warm around his bicep.

"I suck at identifying constellations. I usually don't bother. But since you're here today, I'll humor you," Aomine sniggers.

Kise playfully punches the other's shoulder as if they've known each other since forever, which in retrospect seems weird because he's never recalled acting that way with anyone before. When Kise tilts his head up and gets his first glimpse at the dark sky, he momentarily runs out of words. A city boy since young, this was Kise's first look at the real night sky. There was a dim glow from a nearby town and a few sparse street lamps lining the highway that appeared like little orange dots in a sea of black. But this was dark enough to grant him a sight he had never seen before.

"Too bad about the clouds though. The sky would look even better when it's clear."

 

~~~

 

If Aomine had to describe last night in a single word, 'uneventful' would suffice. Nothing spectacular nor out of the ordinary. They spent an hour looking at the stars, bemoaning the poor visibility. Halfway back to the university it had started to rain. He had to deal with the sound of Kise's over enthusiastic ramblings, the blaring radio, and the angry pummeling of rain on the roof of his car. He dropped Kise off outside his dorm, said their goodbyes, and walked back to his own dorm through the rain.

Somehow his mind starts wandering off and it lands on Kise and that is when he realizes that there are _two_ Kises. Aomine's naturally been perceptive, even though he comes off as an oblivious idiot most of the time. "It can't be helped," Satsuki once lamented. "You were born with a stupid face." There is the first Kise, the Kise that the world knows and loves. This Kise points at the stars, waving his hand such that his bracelets jangle. He talks with his voice a pitch too high and giggles at everything. Then there is the second Kise, who he had the privilege of meeting, albeit only briefly. This Kise still acts like a puppy, but he is rough around the edges, unconcerned with masking his flaws and insecurities. But he doesn't exist for long. It occurs like a momentary slip out of character, or as Aomine would rather put it, a slip _into_ character.

Aomine kind of mentally berates himself. He's only met Kise for a few hours and they're not even friends, so he doesn't understand why he's spending so much time thinking about him. In an attempt at a counter argument, his mind takes him back to last night with Kise next to him on the grass, shoulders bumping shoulders. Company is nice. Especially when Kise seemed to show interest in identifying the different constellations.

Aomine leaps off his bed and opens his laptop on his desk.

 _Last night was cloudy and it sucked. How about we go again next week? I'll check the weather beforehand to make sure you get great pictures_ , Aomine types in an email.

He leaves his computer turned on while he gets to work on his dreaded math homework. Around fifteen minutes later, he hears a soft ping.

 _Sure, Aomine-kun! (_ _▰_ _˘_ _◡_ _˘_ _▰ )_

 

~~~

 

The day before he left for university, Aomine could not fall asleep. It's not like he's moving millions of miles away. He's just moving to the opposite end of Greater Tokyo, that's all. He's tried counting numbers, only to mess it up when he counts past fifty. He tries to think about nothing at all, but by trying to think about nothing, he ends up thinking about something. Fuck this.

He kicks off his covers, puts on a pair of sweatpants over his boxers, and then jogs downstairs, circling round many flights of stairs. He's careful not to trip over potted plants and the stray cats hiding in the shadows. He doesn't bother walking out any further. At close to 3 a.m., it probably isn't safe anyway. He stands at the entrance of his apartment and looks up at the sky.

There is only one working street lamp, so his view isn't too bad.

At times like these, it's nice to know that even though it seems like everything is going to change, at least some things remain the same.

 

~~~

 

The second time they drive out, Kise prepares dinner for both of them.

Aomine looks at the sad excuse for a sandwich on his lap.

"The supermarket ran out of chicken and ham... Can you believe it?" Kise chuckles.

So, because Aomine said that he loves meat, Kise stuffed his sandwich with chicken nuggets from McDonalds'. It looks very endearing, despite discordant mismatch of chicken nuggets, lettuce and cheese. He doesn't even know how to hold it without its contents spilling all over.

"Well, you could have considered tuna, or like even peanut butter. Or you could have bought an actual burger since you were at McDonalds'."

"I distinctly recall you saying, 'fish is considered a vegetable' and 'tuna is aquatic broccoli', Aomine-kun. Word for word," Kise beams, ignoring the second half of Aomine's sentence.

And if that wasn't cute, Aomine doesn't know what the hell is. _Ugh._

It's nightfall by the time they reach the foot of the hill. Kise is looking into his pocket mirror, checking whether he's got lettuce stuck in his teeth. The car suddenly jerks and Kise's body falls forward, tugging on his safety belt. The mirror goes flying out of his hands, colliding with the dashboard before falling on the floor.

"Sorry!" Aomine screams. He points at the tiny, furry animal in front of his car. "Rabbit."

It takes five minutes worth of car horns and cursing to drive the rabbit away.

"God fucking! Ugh!" Aomine grumbles as he steps on the pedal.

Kise bends over to retrieve his mirror and notices a hairline crack running down the center. He visibly winces, lips pressed into a thin line.

In an attempt to make the situation better, Aomine comments, "It's like that facade of yours. Doesn't last forever." He reaches his hand over and grabs his coffee from his cup holder. He expects some sort of witty retort, or plain whining, but he gets no response. Peering over, he sees Kise still trained on the crack in his mirror. _Okay... Maybe that wasn't the smartest thing to say._

Aomine is about to add some nervous laughter to show that he's joking, but Kise starts laughing first. His mirror is an old one anyway, so it doesn't matter. Aomine starts running lines in his head, afraid that he's offended the blond.

Kise reaches over to lightly punch his shoulder.

"Dude, why are you so tense. You look like you just ran over someone."

When he releases the tension building in his muscles, he hears Kise breathe a sigh of relief, slumping against the cool glass of his window.

 

~~~

 

Objectively speaking, the second time stargazing is exactly the same. Kise is lying on his right, shoulders bumping shoulders, knees bent in a sit up position. He's breathing through his nose, making quiet wheezing noises. _Seasonal allergies_ , he explains. And yet, it feels completely different. Kise is rambling on and on about how his editor likes the first draft of his write-up and he hopes to get good pictures tonight.

Aomine oscillates between silence and derisive snorts. With Kise occasionally jabbing fingers at his waist, it's hard for him to stay serious.

The sky is a swirl of purple and black. Stars appear slowly, and then all at once. Kise points his camera upwards, trying to capture a decent image.

"All these look like shit," he grumbles as he scrolls through the pictures he's taken.

"Duh," Aomine says. "Pictures always look like shit, no matter how expensive the camera."

Kise gives him a drawn out groan. He shifts his weight to one side of his body to slip his phone out of his back pocket. Holding up his phone with his front facing camera, he ambushes Aomine for a selfie. Aomine is forced to smile on the second try.

"There we go," Kise says as he sends Aomine the picture. "Looks good, huh?

They spend a while matching stars to their constellations, complaining about how Ursa Major looks nothing like a god damn bear. "It looks like a surfboard with legs," Kise describes.

When Kise asks why Aomine likes to stargaze, Aomine tries to come up with a coherent answer. He opens his mouth and then closes it, his mind searching for the right words.

"It makes me feel less lonely."

Kise raises his eyebrows. He would have thought that stargazing was a pretty lonely activity. Looking at the desolate and grim night sky makes him feel insignificant and all the more alone. But the light in the stars soothes him and makes him feel lucky, because opportunities like these are rare.

Aomine clarifies, "I don't know why, but in university, I feel like being surrounded by so many people is suffocating. I have so many friends, and yet I still feel lonely. It feels different out here. It feels different with you too."

He catches himself at his last sentence. It easily escaped his lips and now those words are thrown out in the open. There's a part of him that worries Kise may misunderstand, and another that _wants_ Kise to. It's a tease, and it draws out a smile that hangs on Kise's lips.

They fall into a comfortable silence.

Aomine doesn't remember how much time has passed, but he supposes that they should head back before it gets too late. He feels something nudge his side and he thinks RATS, but then he realizes that it's just Kise who's fallen asleep. With a large amount of effort, Kise pulls out of his sleep state, like an old soul emerging from a dense fog. He rubs his eyes and stumbles behind Aomine back to his car.

 

~~~

 

Kise easily slips out of Aomine's life, just like the way he had slipped in. He publishes a glowing review of the astronomy club and also sends Aomine a thank you e-card. Midorima comes over to Aomine's room holding the newspaper. Pointing at Kise's name, he asks, "Whose dick did you have to suck to get him to write?"

Aomine groans and chucks his pillow at Midorima's face, knocking his glasses askew. "Maybe if you weren't so busy vacuuming your room all the time, you wouldn't need to jump to conclusions!"

And then Satsuki is bursting through his doors, asking to borrow a pair of scissors to cut out the article.

When the commotion dies down and he's alone in his room again, he unlocks his phone to look at his photo gallery. It's pretty sparse (Aomine's not a photo person) but there is a latest addition to his gallery that captures most of his attention.

He doesn't take back his view on photography. Nothing beats seeing through your own eyes. Lenses in their natural, cellular state surely triumph the cheap imitation camera lenses offer. A photograph does nothing but capture light and color, a collision of wavelengths that leave behind a frozen and static moment in time. How does this compare to being then and there in the present? Why distract yourself with figuring out the correct exposure and the perfect sharpness, when there are more pressing things to attend to? Like how someone's hair billows in the passing gust of wind, or the way their hair falls over their forehead when they tuck their chin inwards, as if to hide a sacred smile.

 _Yes_ , Aomine maintains every last bit of his stand. He's etched into the back of his mind the melody of Kise's laughter with every instance of breathlessness, as well as the crinkles in the corners of his eyes when he smiles. But if there was anything to be said of memories, it is that they are not infallible. Time chips away at its edges and leaves behind bits and pieces that you struggle to put back together.  If anything, pictures offer an unmatched durability. Aomine thumbs over the sole picture he has with Kise, however fleeting their friendship might have been, and feels an ounce of regret.

 

~~~

 

Over the next few days, Aomine receives emails from students interested in joining the club. He should be feeling happy about this, and he is. There will finally be people who share similar interests as him. But these people... they aren't _him_. He sighs. He doesn't have any reason to talk to Kise again. It would be weird to randomly message him.

He supposes he should email Kise to thank him for the new members. _I'll do that tomorrow_ , he tells himself.

He has basketball practice the next day, so he forgets. Naturally. And the day after that, he fell asleep doing his homework. "Tomorrow" never comes and Aomine finds himself five days later, still stuck with a draft in his email.

Aomine gets paired with a literature geek for a project. Akashi has an air of pretentiousness and Aomine already dislikes him. He takes out his fancy MacBook Air from his patent leather backpack and sets it down in front of him. When Aomine sees that his wallpaper is the logo of the student press, he immediately takes an interest.

"You write for the school newspaper?" Aomine asks.

Akashi nods a 'yes'.

This seems like a good conversation topic for small talk to break the ice, especially if he's going to depend on this guy to save his literature grade.

"Kise Ryouta wrote a nice article for my astronomy club," Aomine says.

The boy gives Aomine an unimpressed frown.

"Frankly speaking, it's so beneath him. He's usually so uninterested in lame clubs, so I'm quite surprised he volunteered to write it. What did you bribe him with?"

Aomine practically slams his hand on the table, shouting in the loudest volume appropriate for Starbucks, "I did NOT bribe anybody."

As much as he likes what he's hearing, he hates Akashi's tone. He doesn't know whether to punch him or punch himself.

 

~~~

 

Despite the disastrous meeting with Akashi, Aomine leaves Starbucks happier than before. Walking with a quarter-filled cup of coffee in his left hand and phone in his right, he opens the draft left untouched in his email. He almost steps on someone sitting on the pavement, which he doesn't understand since there are plenty of places to sit on campus.

He's about to finish off his email when he walks into someone. His coffee cup drops on the floor between them.

"Aominecchi!" A familiar voice shouts.

_...Kise?_

Aomine bends down to pick up his pathetic cup. He meets Kise's golden eyes and smiles.

"Hey."

Kise chuckles, "Hey yourself."

It feels like they're meeting each other for the first time.

"I was wondering how long you'd take to reply my elaborate e-card," Kise teases. "I didn't spend fifteen minutes choosing a lame design to get ignored."

"Ah," is Aomine's lame response. He points at his phone screen as an apology.

Kise tightens his hand around his bag strap and looks like he's about to leave. Aomine quickly asks, "You free for supper tonight? I've got basketball practice until 8, but we can eat something after that."

"After practice? When you're all hot and sweaty?" Kise smirks. "Sure."

When Aomine finishes fully processing Kise's words, Kise is already gone and—

_Aominecchi?_

 

~~~

 

Kise walks into Aomine's basketball practice half an hour before 8. He sits near the front and watches Aomine the entire time. Aomine gets distracted a lot and misses the basket, leading to a slap up the back of his head by Midorima.

"So it was his dick," Midorima deadpans just before he releases his high projectile three shot.

Aomine stands there dumbfounded, unable to recall the context of that statement. When he finally remembers, he shouts, "Oh my god!" so loud that even Kise can hear. Kise looks at him with a certain fondness in his eyes, fingers curled and palm cradling his chin. In these moments, Aomine feels his heart beat faster because he notices.

Over a shared pot pie and two cups of hot chocolate, Aomine talks about his project partner from hell. Kise, thoughtfully biting on his fork, simply states, "You'll probably get an A. Even a deadweight like you can't drag Akashi down."

 

~~~

 

Like a puppy, Kise desires all of Aomine's attention, not that Aomine actually minds. He has to take pictures of everything, from his math problems, to a selfie of himself with the bronze statue in front of the library. Aomine secretly saves these in his phone. Sometimes, Kise sticks to Aomine's side like he has no notion of personal space. As much as Aomine complains about this, he knows deep down in his heart that he loves it.

Kise calls him at 2 a.m. when he's trying to sleep. Aomine scoots towards his bedside table, hands making careless grabs at the objects on his table until he finds his phone. Apparently, Kise feels a compulsive need to announce the list of things he bought on Amazon.

Holding up his phone requires too much effort, so Aomine lets it rest on the side of his face. Aomine grunts, "Will you let me fucking go to sleep?"

"Aominecchi!" Kise shouts and Aomine feels his brain implode. "I bought a pair of binoculars! We can go stargazing!!!"

Aomine feels his heart in his throat.

 

~~~

 

It is a grand affair when Kise's parcel arrives. There is the buildup as they walk to the university post office, Kise brimming with joy. And then there is the anticipation as Kise waits for the staff to retrieve his package. He is leaning over the counter like a ten year old. Aomine feels younger just by looking at him.

Kise practically stabs the box with a penknife in his dorm room. He pulls out the bubble wrap and lays it flat on the floor.

"For you," he says. Aomine stares in disbelief.

But five minutes later, they are both jumping on the bubble wrap so hard that he hopes Kise doesn't get complained at.

Kise pulls out the pair of binoculars and holds it up in the air for Aomine to see.

"Makes my own pair look like a piece of junk," he remarks.

It starts raining just before they leave and Kise complains, again. Kise looks miserable. All that excitement built up, only to be shot down by something as fickle as the weather.

"Come to my room," Aomine offers, his hand finding its place on Kise's forearm. "Movie marathon?"

 

~~~

 

It takes ten minutes and a coughing fit to unearth Aomine's box of DVDs he's brought from home. It is a maroon cardboard box from IKEA with silhouettes of puppies and airplanes. On its side in black marker ink is DO NOT TOUCH, scribbled in by Aomine's thirteen year old self. He picks out a few of his favorite movies for Kise to choose.

"This one," Kise says, tapping the plastic casing of the first Pokémon movie.

Aomine has to turn up the volume to drown out the pelting of rain on his windows. He places his laptop between the two of them, with Kise finding a comfortable space in the crook of Aomine's shoulder. He has this movie memorized from the front to the back, from every funny moment to every bad joke. So he directs his attention at Kise. How he is completely unaffected, like this is some normal seating position friends find themselves in. It's probably his thirteen year-old hormonal self that is being hyperaware of everything.

He makes it through an hour with Kise in that position. There is a nice spread of pretzel crumbs over his lap, mostly because Kise is a clumsy eater.

He starts tearing when he gets to the part where Ash Ketchum turns into stone and all the Pokémon start crying. Even though he's watched this movie close to twenty times, he still gets fucked up at scenes like this. Kise, looking over at the tears streaming down Aomine's cheek, leans over to kiss him full on the lips.

It feels like kissing a dead fish. Aomine's eyes are wide open in shock, lips chapped and unmoving. Kise quickly pulls away, flushing with embarrassment. The blanket draped over their laps shifts, spilling the pretzel crumbs over Aomine's bed.

"Sorry, I thought you felt the same way," Kise mutters, speeding through his words in an attempt to run away, but Aomine catches his wrist and pulls him back in. They bump noses, and Aomine kisses with his mouth open and Kise has his mouth closed, but they soon find each other in the perfect fit of their lips. He's conscious of his rapidly beating heart and how Kise's chest feels the same way drumming against his skin.

Kise crawls into Aomine's lap and rolls his hips, gasping in broken sentences with his mouth infuriatingly close to Aomine's ear. Aomine puts two and two together, piecing together Kise's words that continuously ring in his ear, _you have no idea how long I've been thinking about this_.

Aomine's fingers trail the smooth flesh of Kise's back and then sink into it when Kise puts his hand down his pants. The movie on his computer is still playing, with Mewtwo in the middle of his impassioned speech, and it is a little distracting with the way Kise is acting now.

"Fuck," Kise says in a guttural groan, climbing out of Aomine's lap to his dismay. He slams the laptop shut and places it on the floor, before pushing Aomine onto his back. Aomine peppers kisses on Kise's jaw, his neck, and his shoulder blades, with Kise's soft whimpers into his side making him all hot and bothered.

According to urban legend, it takes twenty-one days for a habit to form. Fuck that. It's been hardly three weeks since he's known Kise, but he knows that this part of him, the part that's meant for Kise, is going to stick. Kise is like a drug, his eyes gilded with the unattainable high of sunsets, clawing at his skin, desperate for release.

With his pants pooled at his ankles and Kise's teeth sinked into his flesh, he lets go, hands extending over the bedspread he had been clutching. Kise collapses on top of his body, shirt long discarded in the heat of things, but Aomine feels weightless and completely happy. He blinks back the stars in his eyes, the swirl of galaxies and surfboard shaped constellations to bring his focus back onto Kise.

If this is what it's going to be like orbiting around each other, never feeling alone and always feeling whole, then Aomine wouldn't trade it for the world.

He looks at Kise and wonders why he's always looked so far, when everything he's ever needed has always been right in front of his eyes.

 

 

 

 


End file.
